Nebraska Wesleyan officially joins IIAC

Nebraska Wesleyan University is officially a member of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference beginning today.

The Prairie Wolves are the ninth member and the first from outside the boundary of Iowa in a league that dates back to 1922. NWU will now compete strictly in NCAA Division III after being a dual member of NCAA III and NAIA since 1982.

“The schools in the Iowa Conference we think are very similar and a lot of them are what we call our peer institutions”, said Nebraska Wesleyan athletic director Dr. Ira Zeff. “They are living the same philosophy we are on a daily basis so we are very excited about the move.”

NWU was part of the Great Plains Athletic Conference since it began in 2000. Prior to that, the school was a founding member of the Nebraska Intercollegiate Athletic Conference that started in 1969.

Nebraska Wesleyan’s first official contest as an IIAC member comes September 3 when the women’s tennis team faces both Dubuque and Buena Vista in Storm Lake, Iowa.